Seattle Gets a Noise Complaint

Everyone’s dealt with festival depression. It’s not just isolated to festivals…something about spending a concentrated amount of time centered around an intense and intimate experience leaves you feeling like you need more. Music only heightens it. Holy Ship is no exception. I was always told about the almost ravenous nature of the ShipFam community, and once you’ve gone, you get it. Something about being trapped on a boat for three days with people does something to you. And in order to ease your body and mind back into the every day norms of society, you have Recompression parties.

This isn’t a new concept, by any means. The idea comes from deep sea divers going through the process to avoid the bends upon resurfacing. Science fictions conventions have a version of it. Burning Man has made Decompression parties overwhelmingly popular, to the point where the term is actually trademarked, and an order to use the term it has to be permitted.

To quench the post ship blues, New York based DJ and fellow ShipFam Subset (Mark Martinez) began putting together a US tour, and Seattle local Jonathan Cats’ ears perked up. Between the the enormous Holy Ship community in Seattle, the flourishing music scene in the city, and the amount of friends Mark has in the area; booking him in the Emerald City seemed like a no-brainer. So Jon went to work finding a venue to host him. But at first everyone said no. Too small of an artist.Not interested in his style (while he might be a little more bass heavy, he still played a remix of “Spice Up Your Life” at his Holy Ship pre-party and at the Recompression tour in March).

The goddess of truth.

But finally, Cats got a lead. A small one, but a place to start. There was some interest expressed by the venue Kremwerk, located in Seattle at the base of Capitol Hill. Kremwerk (German for “milk factory”) is the poster child for underground European night club. Dark, distinct, a little weird, and never falling short of amazing music. Seems like it may have been a perfect fit. Kremwerk, while interested was still taking quite a bit of precaution. If this was going to happen, Jon would be paying for everything up front. Booking fee, flights, even a site fee for the venue if they didn’t end up selling enough.

Despite Cats having zero to no experience as a club promoter, the night was an overwhelming success. So much that Kremwerk said that it was one of the best nights they’ve ever had. So much that the immediately asked him if he would interested in throwing more events there. So much, that Subset decided to pack up his life in Brooklyn, where he had spent the last five year with an apartment and friends, and weekly Saturday night (Bassment Saturdays) at Webster Hall; and move completely across the country to Seattle.

And that’s really what brings us to Noise Complaint. Initially, Cats passed on the opportunity to host more events. Life gets busy, and he’s killing it as a car salesman, so the idea of bringing something else on at the time just didn’t really seem appealing. When Mark started to plan his journey out to the west coast, the two started chatting about the what the Seattle reincarnation of Bassment could look like. The universe seemed to think that the timing was perfect and around then Kremwerk contacted Jon AGAIN about throwing another event. Sometimes you just need a little push in the right direction. What started as an idea, led to a “monthly party that is small in size, but big on talent.”

Noise Complaint, at it’s core, is all about the music. Both parties involved are already thriving in their careers and are creating something just so people can come together and listen to music. There’s no attempt to change the world (not yet anyway), but really just to build on the already thriving music scene in Seattle and have a good time.

“We want people to be able to let loose, have fun, be in the moment, and feel respected. We want people to respect the music, and be there for the music…we want to create something special and memorable for all parties involved.” – Jon Cats

On August 12th, Noise Complaint will have it’s debut night featuring locals Subset, Mikey Mars, and Meistro; with the house music boss BONES headlining the midst of his Summer Scramble tour. RSVP to the event on Facebook, and snag your tickets now for an easy $10. We will be seeing some pretty amazing acts come through Noise Complaint in the future. It’s always exciting to see a new idea spring up from an interesting opportunity, and if this is what these two are capable of from day one, we should have some wonderful things to look forward to.